It’s Not Too Late

Last week the Senate Agriculture Committee announced that negotiations over the 2007 farm bill had produced an agreement between Senator Harkin (D-IA), the committee chairman, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) and ranking member Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) over many of the most hotly debated issues in the farm bill debate.

However, their negotiation agreement over farm payment limits is woefully inadequate. The “deal” proposed by Senator Conrad and Senator Chambliss fails to close crucial loopholes that allow the nation’s largest farms to receive multi-million dollar farm payments.

Unlimited farm payments give large, aggressively expanding farms an unfair advantage that they can use to drive family farmers out of business. Closing the loopholes and limiting payments is a first step toward revitalizing family farms and rural communities, and will free up scarce resources for investment in other priorities such as conservation, beginning farmers, and rural development. Funding those priorities benefits all of America, not just a select few.

On Wednesday the Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to take up the farm bill. It’s not too late to take a stand.

Call your Senators and demand REAL reform. Senator Dorgan’s (D-ND) and Senator Grassley’s (R-IA) Rural America Preservation Act will close the loopholes and limit the payments. Visit: http://www.cfra.org/realreform for a letter you can email to your Senators.

A single twig is easily snapped, but many twigs gathered together are strong and impossible to break. No matter what your occupation; we all must come together and stand up for the future of rural America.